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Picture this:

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your friend and you are watching a sitcom

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and a sassy sidekick walks into a room,

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carrying a four-tiered wedding cake.

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He trips,

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falls,

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and face-plants into the cake.

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Your friend doubles over with laughter and says,

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"It's so ridiculous! So ironic!"

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Well, quick, what do you do?

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Do you laugh along with the laugh track

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and let this grievous misinterpretation of irony go?

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Or, do you throw caution to the wind

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and explain the true meaning of irony?

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If you're me, you choose the latter.

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Unfortunately, irony has been completely misunderstood.

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We tend to throw out that term

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whenever we see something funny or coincidental.

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And while many examples of true irony can be funny,

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that is not the driving factor of being ironic.

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A situation is only ironic if what happens

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is the exact opposite of what was expected.

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If you expect A, but get B,

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then you have irony.

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Let's take the slap-stick cake situation as an example.

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When someone walks in precariously balancing something

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that shouldn't be carried alone,

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trips, falls, and makes a mess,

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it is funny, but it's not ironic.

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In fact, you probably expect someone

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who is single-handedly carrying a huge cake to trip.

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When he does, reality aligns with expectations,

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and so that is <i>not</i> irony.

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But what if the sassy sidekick walked in wearing a gold medal

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that he'd won at the cake walking event

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at the Atlanta Olympics in 1996?

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What if that sidekick was a professional cake carrier?

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Then, maybe there would have been a reasonable expectation

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that he would have been more skilled

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when carrying a ridiculously large cake.

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Then, when that reasonable expectation was not met by the tripping sidekick,

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irony would have been exemplified.

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Another example.

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A senior citizen texting and blogging.

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The common and reasonable expectation

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of more <i>mature</i> men and women

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is that they don't like or know technology,

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that they have a hard time turning on a computer,

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or that they have the old brick cell phones from the 1980s.

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One should not expect them to be connected,

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high-tech,

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or savvy enough to text

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or to be blogging,

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which must seem like some sort of newfangled thing

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that "back in my day," they never had.

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So when Granny pulls out her smart phone

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to post pictures of her dentures

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or her grandkids,

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irony ensues.

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Reasonable expectations of the situation are not met.

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That is irony.

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So while the cake dropper might not be ironic,

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there are all kinds of situations in life that are.

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Go out, and find those true examples of irony.